


No Moon, No Stars

by OneHandedBooks



Series: We Are But Dust and Shadows [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Empathy, M/M, Masturbation, Misery, Obsession, Power Play, Season/Series 03, mentions of cannibalism, very brief mention of child abuse by killer of the week, we'll always have Venice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHandedBooks/pseuds/OneHandedBooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Two weeks after they’d gotten to Venice, Hannibal had asked Will to hunt with him for the first time.</em>
</p><p>AU: What if Will joined Hannibal willingly after the Uffizi Gallery and they shared a few tense weeks in the world before Mason's men finally ran them down?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Title from Myth of Devotion, Louise Gluck
> 
> 1\. Kisses Tie Our Mouths  
> 2\. First as the Shadows of Fluttering Leaves  
> 3\. What Do the Dead Know?  
> 4\. No Moon, No Stars
> 
> But, there's only a modicum of actual plot. You can probably jump in anywhere.

_“You play, you win. You play, you lose. You play.” –The Passion, Jeanette Winterson_

Two weeks after they’d gotten to Venice, Hannibal had asked Will to hunt with him for the first time.

He’d asked with the same deceptive casualness as when he’d asked Will to eat with him before they made their escape from Florence. Then he’d reminded Will of the waiter in the exquisite back alley bistro who’d been extremely rude regarding Will’s faltering attempt to order dinner in Italian.

Will had frozen in the act of mincing garlic for a sticky ginger glaze. It was not a completely unexpected request, however, and Will was somewhat surprised it had taken this long for the topic to surface.

“Bored of your beloved Venice already?” he had teased, making hopeful light of Hannibal’s request. “Surely there’s at least one more museum of Venetian basket weaving you haven’t shown me.”

Hannibal had smiled tightly at Will’s obvious deflection, eyes narrowed, and let the silence spin out, waiting to see what Will would do.

Will had met Hannibal’s predatory gaze finally and politely declined. “ _Preferisco non_ ,” he’d said, feeding Hannibal his own words back to him. He’d leaned across the marble kitchen island and kissed Hannibal’s cheek to soften their sarcastic bite.

Hannibal had accepted this, or appeared to accept it, with relatively good grace.

Two days after he'd forced Will to confront Abigail’s darkwater ghost, Hannibal asked again.

Will was sitting at the edge of a big wingback chair in the library, switching back and forth between nautical charts and the local tide tables and planning their next disappearing act, when Hannibal made his proposition.

Will sighed, setting his charts aside on the low table and picking up his whisky. Hannibal watched him take a long swallow before answering.

“Another snobby waiter?” Will asked, playing for time.

“Not at all,” Hannibal responded, handing Will a manila folder from the table beside his own chair. “I believe they call this Interpol’s Most Wanted. Daniel Jorgensen. 53. A former primary school art teacher. Currently thought to be at large in Eastern Europe. And yet…here he is in Venice…” Hannibal smiled. “With us.”

“What’s he wanted for?” Will asked automatically, unable to stop himself from flipping open the folder.

“In America, he’s suspected in the disappearance of several children. He’s also wanted for sex tourism in Thailand,” Hannibal answered immediately.

Will’s mouth turned down in a moue of disgust and he shuddered. He flipped past the photographs of missing children and paused to look at one of the blurred Interpol surveillance photos of Jorgensen in a Ukranian airport. Then he closed his eyes and turned inward. The pendulum swung.

"I am a wolf in sheep's clothing," he said after a moment.

Will changed as he talked through Jorgensen’s crimes, becoming older, softer around the middle, a kind of slippery charismatic smile stretching his lips. Hannibal watched, fascinated, as Jorgensen rose into Will’s face.

 "I... I am trusted. Parents like me." Will paused and Hannibal fancied he could actually  _hear_  his mind working. "Children..." Will choked out, face twitching now as his own personality bled through Jorgensen’s. "Children like me," he finished sickly. He opened his eyes and covered his face with his hand.

Before he could give the file back to Hannibal, he had a brief but unbelievably rich and tempting vision of stalking this horrorshow of a human being though Venice’s narrow, twisting streets with Hannibal beside him. Waiting for Jorgensen to realize he was being followed. Waiting to see the fear rise in his eyes as they closed in on him, their lips drawn back over their teeth in monstrous matching grins. Closing his hands around the man’s throat and locking eyes with Hannibal as he did. 

“He would deserve it,” Will thought to himself in Hannibal’s voice. “No one could blame me.” He twisted the file in his damp hands trying to shake off the sense of Hannibal speaking in the back of his mind.

Hannibal watched these deadly thoughts manifest in Will’s slight, sharp grin and clenching fists with a smile of satisfaction so subtle that only Will might have noticed it.

“I happened to see him while I was out restocking the wine cellar,” Hannibal continued.

Will looked up from the file and raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Now that’s a likely story, he thought. How long _did_ it take you, I wonder, to track down someone you’d think of as the _perfect victim_ for me?

“As I told you once, Will, Venice has played hostess to many fugitives,” Hannibal said, responding to Will’s skeptical look. “As it plays hostess to us and now to this man.” “You should have him,” Hannibal coaxed. “ _We_ should have him.” He paused then pushed harder. “He’ll never be caught. You can see that Interpol doesn’t even know where he really is. He deserves it. And you know it.”

I would be saving people ( _children_ ), Will thought, this time in his own voice. He shook his head unconsciously as he searched for a diplomatic way of declining Hannibal’s hellishly appealing offer.

 _“I want him_ ,” Hannibal responded tightly. Beyond the slight stricture in his voice and the minute clench of his jaw, he betrayed almost nothing of the depth of his desire. He might have been a man insisting on any matter of minor importance to him; where to go on vacation, whether to go to mother's for the holiday. But when Hannibal spoke, Will saw the truth of him. He leaned forward through the civilized mask, grown pale and insubstantial as fog, with his teeth bared and eyes blazing fury. His fingers turned to claws on the arms of the chair. Will felt the darkness inside him respond, growing fangs and snarling back, snapping and growling. With great effort, Will pushed it away. Carefully cossetting it like a feral pet.

Hannibal watched him do it, watched Will's war with himself play out in his beautifully expressive face, with an almost blinding rage. His lips were pressed together in a tight thin line. I see you, Will, Hannibal thought. I see you very well. How long will you fight this tiresome fight to domesticate yourself?

Will trembled slightly, gripping his thighs and averting his eyes from Hannibal’s piercing regard. “I…I wish you wouldn’t, Hannibal. I can’t help that. But…I understand why you want to. I can’t help that either. And…you know I won’t ask you to stop.”

Hannibal sat back in his chair, temporarily mollified, and completely composed. “You won’t say no to me forever, Will,” he said, with an excellent imitation of affection. Then he picked up a copy of the local paper from the basket beside the chair and flicked it open ostentatiously in front of his face, declaring the subject closed.

For about half an hour, they read in relative peace. Then Hannibal stood, folding the paper and setting it aside. He walked behind the high back of Will’s chair and paused there, just out of sight.

“There’s an opening at the Palazzo Grassi this evening,” he said over Will’s shoulder. “I believe I’ll attend. I don’t think it would be to your taste, so you can feel free to spend the night in.”

Oh can I? Will thought sarcastically, still shaken from his earlier vision.

“I’ll pick up something…imported…for dinner on the way home,” Hannibal finished.

Will broke out in gooseflesh at the nasty little snarl in Hannibal’s voice, but he forced himself to stand and walk over to Hannibal anyway. It was always better not to show predators fear. He smoothed non-existent wrinkles out of Hannibal’s pressed shirt and looked directly into his impassive face.

“That’s fine,” Will said, with manufactured boldness. “I’ll see you when you get back.” He kissed Hannibal’s cheek then very deliberately turned his back on him, sat down, and took up his charts again.

After Hannibal went out, dressed in an upscale version of his usual wealthy tourist drag, Will paced the empty townhouse feeling uncomfortably like a heartsick wife waiting for the return of an adulterous husband.

We have to sort this out, Will thought, stalking upstairs to the roof deck.

He wandered the perimeter of the roof then he stopped short, realizing for the first time that he could simply leave. Hannibal was away. He could end this…this blackheart life by simply walking out the door. ( _i should go. i should want to go_) He looked out sightlessly at the long view of the bright and glowing city. In his hopeless upset, Will did not see the setting sun glinting off Venice’s ancient waterways and he did not see it shadowing the slow and careful approach of a four man hunting party.

As soon as Hannibal gets back, Will thought again, we have to sort it out. Tomorrow at the latest. He walked back and forth restlessly, blinded to the stirrings of his internal alarm and unaware that their borrowed time was almost up.


	2. Chapter 2

Will meandered disconsolately back downstairs, pausing at the second floor bathroom. He thought of the cool marble, the soothing, nearly endless hot water. He swung the door open, stripping off as he went. He tossed his clothes across the sink, thinking that he should just leave them there until Hannibal returned because it would really piss him off. And Hannibal would do his best not to show how much it pissed him off. And Will thought that he would really enjoy watching that.

He walked into the big shower and cranked the water as hot as he could stand it. He crossed his arms on the chilly tile and leaned his head against them, letting the water pour over his bare body.

The hot spray melted the tension from his shoulders. As his muscles relaxed, he began to feel each individual drop of water prickling his skin. His libido, long banked, had flamed to life under Hannibal’s encouragement and he felt deep tingling welling up in his body, rippling outward from each point of water.

He put his hands over his head, palms flat on the tile, and let the water caress him. He resisted the urge to curve his fingers around his aching cock and coax the pleasure higher. Instead, he let the stinging, tingling heat spread through him on its own, filling his body from fingertips to toes.

He thought of nothing in particular. Blissfully blank as the water sluiced over his body carrying away the tension of the day. He looked up at the showerhead with his eyes closed, letting the hot water wash over his face. He opened his mouth and let the water come into him then spit it out. Over and over.

He tipped his chin back so that the water could slide over his throat. Turned his head from side to side as the water drenched his hair, washed over his neck and down his chest. He stepped back from the wall and put his hands behind his head, letting the harsh hot water hit his chest and pull his nipples taut. He moaned softly as he felt his cock fill and lift in response.

Will wrapped his arms around himself and skated his fingertips over the curves of his biceps. He trailed his fingers whisper light over his warm, wet body, closing his eyes in satisfaction. Steam swirled white around him, occluding the rest of the room.

Will ran a hand up the side of his neck and through his wet hair, leaning into his own touch. As he did, his mind offered him Hannibal cooking shirtless.

( _no_ )

Abigail as Waterhouse’s Circe, bare under a diaphanous gown, eyes burning. This image covering the first like a living Tarot card.

( _god no)_

A now familiar image of Hannibal bound with his own shirt to a kitchen chair, helpless, licking Burgundy from Will’s skin.

( _…well…ok no. still no_ )

Will exhaled and pushed the stack of images away. ( _just the feel of the water. the feel of the water sliding over my skin_ ). He twisted the showerhead until the spray arced across the marble enclosure. Then he turned around and leaned against the opposite wall to let the water fall across the small of his back. He arched and bent, spreading his legs. The water pounded feverhot on his back, his ass, between his cheeks. ( _oh_ _that’s good_ )

He squeezed his eyes shut and felt strong hands gripping his hips. Hannibal’s hands on his hips. ( _no._ ) Hannibal’s bloody fucking hands all over him. ( _no._ _enough._ ) Then Hannibal was in front of him. Powerful. Beautiful. He watched Hannibal push his wet hair back with his hands and turn his face up into the spray. He watched the water rinse Jorgensen’s blood off Hannibal’s body. Off both their bodies. Watercolor crimson splattered the marble tile and flowed down the steel drain.

Will stepped close and bit into Hannibal’s shadow flesh with teeth grown sharp, adding to the red ribbon snaking across the marble floor. Hannibal let him do it. Encouraged him. He clutched Will’s back, curved one arm around his waist, holding on as Will tore into his throat. Then they were kissing, and kissing, and kissing, and kissing.

Will took his cock in his hand finally and stroked hard from base to tip. He could almost feel Hannibal’s lips on his, tongue sliding sweetly into his mouth. In Will’s mind, Hannibal held him hard against the tile wall by his arms and pressed his muscular thigh between his legs, rocking it against him.

Will moaned and canted his hips forward, chasing the ghostly sensation. Then the images shifted and Will saw himself holding Hannibal down by the back of the neck, both of them kneeling in the bloody water. Hannibal was struggling, fighting him, but Will was winning. Will saw himself forcing Hannibal to bend further, shoving Hannibal’s legs wide with his knees.

_‘Will, please,’ Hannibal’s shadow begged in a smirking facsimile of fear. ‘Don’t.’_

Will ignored his pleas, pressing tight against Hannibal’s body, pulling his head back by his silky hair, baring his throat.

_'Tell me you love me.’_

_‘I love you, Will.’_

_‘Tell me you need me.’_

_‘I need you.’_

_‘Ask me again. Ask me to hunt with you again.’_

_‘Beautiful, Will. Hunt with me.’_

_‘A-ask me. Ask me to eat with you.’_

_Hannibal grinned, growling. Black eyed and insubstantial. ‘Eat with me.’_

Will stroked his unforgivably hard cock as he watched himself slap Hannibal sharply across the face, splitting his lip. As he watched himself swallow around Hannibal’s prick and then slice open his femoral artery, blood spurting thick and dark as oil across his cheek. As he cupped Hannibal’s cheek and took his mouth in the most delicate kiss. He felt Hannibal melt against him and then he arched up in a helpless curve and came in urgent pulses against the tile.

Will sank to his knees and threw one arm over his eyes, shaking and choking back tears. “Tell me you love me. Tell me you fucking love me,” he whispered aloud, voice drowned out by the relentless water. He bent forward under the spray and curled quaking around himself.

He lost himself in the sound of the pounding water, the rush of his blood in his ears, the shivering aftershocks of heart-breaking pleasure. He did not hear the townhouse door open and close softly and he did not hear the surprisingly light steps of the hunters.


	3. Chapter 3

Will came down the stairs in soft trousers and a white t-shirt. Still slightly damp from the shower, squeezing water out of his hair with a towel. He felt strangely happy. Hollow. As though he had purged something poisonous. He heard rustling in the kitchen. Had Hannibal come home early, he wondered. If so, his nascent plan to leave quietly and save them both had been crushed. He felt unexpectedly balanced about that. There would be other opportunities. He would be saving lives.

Will started to call out for Hannibal, but his voice trailed off as he took in what was not there- no polished leather shoes by the front door, no leather jacket on the coat tree. There was no trace of Hannibal's new citrus and spice cologne. His internal alarms went off like a string of firecrackers. Then he saw furtive movement out of the corner of his eye.  He had time to think, oh fucking fuck, and to hope that Hannibal's hunt had taken him far from home, and then he was swinging.

He fought valiantly and viciously, managing to make good use of the wet towel and the coat rack and to break one man's ribs with a couple of unopposed blows, but there were four of them and one of him, and they took him down in the end.

One man bound his hands behind his back while another gagged him with duct tape. Before he could get to his feet, the man whose ribs he'd broken tried to repay the favor by booting him hard in the side. Will rolled to his knees, eyes watering, and tried to stand. One of the men grabbed his upper arms and pulled him to his feet. A sharp delirious stab of pain shot through his shoulder as the muscle protested. On the edge of passing out, Will thought, that shoulder's just never going to be the same.   
  
The tall man in the corner, who looked so strangely familiar, was Inspector Benetti. He’d stayed largely on the outskirts of the skirmish, but now he stepped forward and slapped Will briskly to bring him around. " _Ehi_ , Mr. Graham! I'm sorry to see you in such circumstances. In the bed of _Il Mostro_?" he tutted, shaking his head in mock disappointment. " _Molto male_."  
  
Will looked at him with black fury. I’ve seen you, he thought. Outside Sogliato’s. I knew Florence PD was dirty. And I let it go. Goddamn it.   
  
"Fuck you," Will spat, straining forward against the man who held him. His voice was muffled by the duct tape, but Benetti got the jist of it.  
  
Benetti laughed. "I think you're the one who's  _fucked_ Mr. Graham."

" _Dovremmo uccidere questo uomo_ ," said the man holding Will up.  
  
Benetti shook his head. "He says we should kill you. But I say no, Mr. Graham. Our patron pays double for both." He looked over Will's shoulder. " _Legarlo_!"  
  
Two men dragged Will to the sitting room and duct taped him to one of the fine wooden chairs. Then the hunting party faded back into the house to wait for their principal quarry. Will was contemplating whether the wood was delicate enough to give way if he started struggling and whether he could do it without attracting attention when he heard Hannibal's key in the lock.   
  
He screamed "run" as loudly as he could beneath the tape and rocked the chair against the floor trying to give Hannibal as much warning as possible. In the infinite moment between the sting of the taser hitting his back and the burn of 50,000 volts stripping consciousness from his body, he saw Hannibal push through the door, moving faster than he had ever seen anyone move, and clearly coming for him. No, he thought as he blacked out. Run.  
  
Three of Mason's men set on Hannibal like a pack of jackals while Benetti hung back, keeping a weather eye on the fray, on the door, on his chances of success.   
  
Hannibal was a far more effective fighter than Will; he was already armed for hunting, somewhat forewarned, and well-schooled in treachery. He saw superimposed on the bodies of the men attacking him a sort of illuminated medieval map of vital organs, blood highways, and structural supports. With terrible economy and grace, he struck unerringly for Achilles tendons, carotid and femoral arteries and dropped two of the three men in seconds. As he turned, bloody and smiling, to take the third man down in turn, he saw Benetti step forward and trigger the taser.   
  
" _Grazie_ for the clear shot, Antonio," Benetti said.  He watched dispassionately as Hannibal dropped to the floor, seizing as electricity poured through him. "Of course, you three could have made the space for me to begin with and maybe your brothers would still be alive." He looked at the two men lying in pools of gore in the sitting room and shook his head. "I was told you were professionals." He pulled out his cell phone. "Sestriere Santa Croce. Bring the truck around."  
  
Under cover of darkness in Venice's fugitive streets, Benetti, Antonio, and two young, ambitious Questura officers were able to muscle Hannibal and Will into the back of their nondescript delivery truck. Benetti took care to bind Hannibal's arms and duct tape his mouth before climbing out.

" _Ehi_! Don't forget to sedate them both before they wake up. And call me when you get to America," he smirked. His men slid the cargo door shut and Benetti knocked on the side to send it on its way.  
  
Will and Hannibal were aware of very little on the long journey from the townhouse, to private airfields in San Marino and Virginia, to bumpy, backcountry roads. A constant sense of motion. Intermittent flashes of light. Thirst. Pain that waxed and waned with the movement of trucks and planes.   
  
When Hannibal finally came to, he saw that he and Will were hanging upside down from hooks like slaughtered hogs in what looked to be a refrigerated meat truck. Thin afternoon light lined the edges of the cargo doors. With some effort, he turned his head to look at Will who was stirring slightly. Neither he nor Will seemed to have been significantly injured. Yet. Hannibal watched Will come around with mild concern, but the majority of his mind was focused elsewhere, on how they would survive.  
  
Will's eyes fluttered open as the truck slowed to a halt. "Hannibal?"  
  
"Hello, Will," Hannibal smiled faintly.  
  
Before Will could say "I'm sorry" or "I love you" or "Why didn't you run?" or any one of a dozen of other things it occurred to him to say, he was blinded by stark sunlight flooding the truck as the cargo doors were yanked open. Then they heard a repellently gleeful voice saying, "Gentlemen! Welcome to Muskrat Farm!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Google Translate is your friend. Or not. Depending on how close to right the Italian is.


End file.
